Also, for those driving in from Austin or Dallas: If you see a Buc-ee's, stop in. It's a whole thing the Texans love. Kind of like smashing a Wawa's and the store part of a Cracker Barrel together then adding 50 gas pumps outside. It's a hoot.
We've been working our way around the steakhouses. Best overall is Pappas Bros. Steak 48 is also very good. I'd recommend either. Both are near-ish the Galleria area, which is off 610 to the west of town. It's a ritzy mall complex/high-end shopping area.
I've not gotten deep into BBQ yet, but I have yet to have bad BBQ. Even at the one that was part gas station (Rudy's I think...there are several). Wherever you go, get the brisket.
Hobby is much easier to get into and out of than Bush and is a smaller airport with all the simplicity that suggests. There is ongoing construction at Bush that impacts parking, but that's mainly an issue for Houstonians flying out. It's just more traffic returning to the airport for out-of-towners.
Traffic is on the bad side for big cities (compared to Boston, Philly, LA) and the backups are heavy around construction areas (610/69 interchange) and poorly designed interchanges. Traffic times routinely double between normal and peak travel times. There are also a ton of toll roads around, but more in the burbs than the city center. Folks in Houston have also apparently never heard of "keep left except to pass." Not quite Florida bad, but close.
This is consistent with other second-hand info I've seen. Definitions vary significantly across countries. An inpatient rehab bed and a vent-capable ICU bed are wildly different capabilities, at least in this context. Also, it's easier (though not easy) to 'create' med/surg beds than ICU beds.
That said, (1) the first estimates I'm seeing are that even better-case scenarios may outstrip ICU capacity, (2) time-to-peak is 2-4 months, (3) there may be a provider pinch at peak, since providers will be exposed early...this may be as much a constraint as physical beds.
Remember the old Heinlein quote: stupidity is its own death sentence.
The rigor of UFR is superior to post-game hot-takes.
And unless you have hit beveled guilt for, minimally, several hundred dollars over the year each blog post is a gift from Brian and his team. And even then it's a gift, just one you've reciprocated.
My daughter got her admit today and is currently prancing around the house in a Michigan shirt and a pair of M pajama bottoms singing the fight song.
It's been her first choice since that cute pre-med student led her campus tour. Apparently the tour my brother and I had provided a month earlier was less...engaging...
Doesn't hurt that she went to her first Michigan game when she was 18 months old.
My favorite line from her essay was 'I belong at Michigan. 20% of the change in my piggy bank is Canadian.'
There was some overlap of mallow and TP...one game I left at halftime and returned with a grocery bag full of marshmallows and TP. The guys at the gate just laughed and waved me in.
I'll second the comment about throwing TP being an art. A dozen arcing rolls of TP/30-ft streamers were glorious. I understand why we had to quit and regret it at the same time.
Occasionally we'd create TP balls and toss them around like the blow-up beachballs. The big dorm TP rolls were ideal for that.
I'd square the circle by arguing that the "legacy" uniforms and traditions arguments are a question of long-term vs. short-term thinking. If they differentiate college football from other sports consumption opportunities then jettisoning them damages the long-term value of the Michigan 'brand' for short term jersey sales. So there is a perfectly rational free-market argument for actions that cost money in the short term (even if only by way of opportunity cost). That's my read on Brian's argument.
To the extent that Michigan gains differential brand equity by a greater attention to tradition in all its forms, it could make sense to do so even when other rivals are exercising those opportunities. So long as there is a way for Michigan to extract value from that tradition (e.g., higher-value TV rights, broader fan base, 110k attendance in down years).
So with the addition of the 2009 data, I wondered if there was a way to refine the games-won estimate. My read is that mistersuits subtracted Michigan's N-PPG of 36.3 from opponent's N-PPG (or 125% of N-PPG). Just for fun, I wondered what including some randomness might yield...
Some notes and assumptions:
Opponent output vs Michigan in 2009 averaged 124% of the rest of their schedule with a standard deviation of 0.3. I used that as the baseline for 2010.
I assumed opponent points scored is normally distributed with a mean of 1.24 * N-PPG and stdev of 0.3 * N-PPG
I assumed Michigan's scoring is also normally distributed with a mean of 36.3 and stdev of 0.3 * 36.3 = 10.8 (just used the 2009 opponent data for simplicity)
The difference between Michigan and opponent's score is normal with mean 36.3 - 1.24*N-PPG and stdev of sqrt(10.8^2 + 0.3*1.24*N-PPG^2)
This yields probabilities of Michigan victory of:
Team
p(Muppets)
Expected wins
Connecticut
54%
Notre Dame
72%
UMass
71%
BGSU
59%
2.6
Indiana
62%
MSU
57%
Iowa
52%
Penn St
79%
Illinois
79%
Purdue
88%
Wisconsin
44%
tOSU
24%
4.9
7.4
For the 4 games in the bag, this seems pessimistic (based on this, there's only a 16% chance of willing all four games). What happens if we dial all of our opponents back to 100% of expected PPG output?
Team
p(Muppets)
Expected wins
Connecticut
72%
Notre Dame
85%
UMass
85%
BGSU
77%
3.2
Indiana
79%
MSU
75%
Iowa
71%
Penn St
89%
Illinois
90%
Purdue
94%
Wisconsin
64%
tOSU
42%
6.0
9.2
9.2 expected wins on the season, 6 in conference play. The probability of winning the first four games is now up to 40%.
An attack of the Angry-BLANK-Hating-God on the offense (or just tougher Big Ten defenses) that cuts Michigan PPG production by 25% would yield 3.1-4.4 conference wins.
The first couple Big Ten games will obviously tell us a lot, but this year has been a lot more fun than the last three...
I felt no emptiness watching the offense that game, just the sort of glee that makes your head explode.
That was a game where the defense was giving us 8 yards a play (at least through the better part of the first half). I have no doubt that there are variants on many of the plays we saw Saturday that end in a ball flying downfield. Let's keep some tools in the bag for the rest of the season.
Recent Comments
Also, for those driving in from Austin or Dallas: If you see a Buc-ee's, stop in. It's a whole thing the Texans love. Kind of like smashing a Wawa's and the store part of a Cracker Barrel together then adding 50 gas pumps outside. It's a hoot.
Alum. Moved to Houston in 2022.
We've been working our way around the steakhouses. Best overall is Pappas Bros. Steak 48 is also very good. I'd recommend either. Both are near-ish the Galleria area, which is off 610 to the west of town. It's a ritzy mall complex/high-end shopping area.
I've not gotten deep into BBQ yet, but I have yet to have bad BBQ. Even at the one that was part gas station (Rudy's I think...there are several). Wherever you go, get the brisket.
Hobby is much easier to get into and out of than Bush and is a smaller airport with all the simplicity that suggests. There is ongoing construction at Bush that impacts parking, but that's mainly an issue for Houstonians flying out. It's just more traffic returning to the airport for out-of-towners.
Traffic is on the bad side for big cities (compared to Boston, Philly, LA) and the backups are heavy around construction areas (610/69 interchange) and poorly designed interchanges. Traffic times routinely double between normal and peak travel times. There are also a ton of toll roads around, but more in the burbs than the city center. Folks in Houston have also apparently never heard of "keep left except to pass." Not quite Florida bad, but close.
Hope that helps.
This is consistent with other second-hand info I've seen. Definitions vary significantly across countries. An inpatient rehab bed and a vent-capable ICU bed are wildly different capabilities, at least in this context. Also, it's easier (though not easy) to 'create' med/surg beds than ICU beds.
That said, (1) the first estimates I'm seeing are that even better-case scenarios may outstrip ICU capacity, (2) time-to-peak is 2-4 months, (3) there may be a provider pinch at peak, since providers will be exposed early...this may be as much a constraint as physical beds.
Remember the old Heinlein quote: stupidity is its own death sentence.
Don't be stupid...
The rigor of UFR is superior to post-game hot-takes.
And unless you have hit beveled guilt for, minimally, several hundred dollars over the year each blog post is a gift from Brian and his team. And even then it's a gift, just one you've reciprocated.
Very excited about the defense.
If the offense holds up it could be a "Legacy of Rome" year. Or maybe even "S.P.Q.R"...
My daughter got her admit today and is currently prancing around the house in a Michigan shirt and a pair of M pajama bottoms singing the fight song.
It's been her first choice since that cute pre-med student led her campus tour. Apparently the tour my brother and I had provided a month earlier was less...engaging...
Doesn't hurt that she went to her first Michigan game when she was 18 months old.
My favorite line from her essay was 'I belong at Michigan. 20% of the change in my piggy bank is Canadian.'
GO BLUE
Got him beat
Seconded
Rail Baron is the avalanche effect at Monopoly speed.
You can spend 3 hours losing that game with no hope of turning it around.
Try Acquire.
I was there. It sucked.
Wow, that was so long ago I don't even begin to remember.
I know it was before Brian "left" his CS job...when he announced he was doing MGoBlog full time I sent him $500.
Best investment ever. It's been a daily hit ever since.
'87-'01
There was some overlap of mallow and TP...one game I left at halftime and returned with a grocery bag full of marshmallows and TP. The guys at the gate just laughed and waved me in.
I'll second the comment about throwing TP being an art. A dozen arcing rolls of TP/30-ft streamers were glorious. I understand why we had to quit and regret it at the same time.
Occasionally we'd create TP balls and toss them around like the blow-up beachballs. The big dorm TP rolls were ideal for that.
I love the ref in the Woodson interception. He totally looks like he's thinking OH MY GOD THAT WAS THE MOST AMAZING THING I'VE EVER SEEN!
I'd square the circle by arguing that the "legacy" uniforms and traditions arguments are a question of long-term vs. short-term thinking. If they differentiate college football from other sports consumption opportunities then jettisoning them damages the long-term value of the Michigan 'brand' for short term jersey sales. So there is a perfectly rational free-market argument for actions that cost money in the short term (even if only by way of opportunity cost). That's my read on Brian's argument.
To the extent that Michigan gains differential brand equity by a greater attention to tradition in all its forms, it could make sense to do so even when other rivals are exercising those opportunities. So long as there is a way for Michigan to extract value from that tradition (e.g., higher-value TV rights, broader fan base, 110k attendance in down years).
Was THE KNOWLEDGE pre or post haloscan?
Very interesting...
So with the addition of the 2009 data, I wondered if there was a way to refine the games-won estimate. My read is that mistersuits subtracted Michigan's N-PPG of 36.3 from opponent's N-PPG (or 125% of N-PPG). Just for fun, I wondered what including some randomness might yield...
Some notes and assumptions:
This yields probabilities of Michigan victory of:
For the 4 games in the bag, this seems pessimistic (based on this, there's only a 16% chance of willing all four games). What happens if we dial all of our opponents back to 100% of expected PPG output?
9.2 expected wins on the season, 6 in conference play. The probability of winning the first four games is now up to 40%.
An attack of the Angry-BLANK-Hating-God on the offense (or just tougher Big Ten defenses) that cuts Michigan PPG production by 25% would yield 3.1-4.4 conference wins.
The first couple Big Ten games will obviously tell us a lot, but this year has been a lot more fun than the last three...
I felt no emptiness watching the offense that game, just the sort of glee that makes your head explode.
That was a game where the defense was giving us 8 yards a play (at least through the better part of the first half). I have no doubt that there are variants on many of the plays we saw Saturday that end in a ball flying downfield. Let's keep some tools in the bag for the rest of the season.
....that was....new
How about "The Real Dileo"?
Alas, it's the downside to having a reader base smarter than that of Steven Hawking's